


Bluebells

by ghostyouknow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Fae & Fairies, Flowers, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:58:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostyouknow/pseuds/ghostyouknow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel looked down and saw his ankles and wrists ringed in flowers. Snowdrops. Cowslips. Field Poppies. He reached up and felt a flower crown atop his own head. The movement disturbed molecules. Perfume reached his nostrils, and he swayed, dizzy, spiderwebs stringing across his vision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bluebells

 

  


Castiel heard bluebells ringing. He focused inward, taking stock of his vessel. Jimmy's hands had been tied behind his back and his ankles were laced together. The bonds felt light and smelled fragrant. The air was tinged with old, wild magic, the kind that operated according to its own whims and answered to no one it hadn't chosen.

“Our angel awakes, and just in time for the dance.” A cold, clear voice. Metallic and melodious.

Castiel opened his eyes. His vision blurred, images merging and distorting. Mandibles. A blood-red thorax. A ballgown. He blinked, and in the space of that blink, his eyes and mind decided on a vision. Now, he saw an elegant woman in a shimmering green dress, her milkweed-white hair twisted elegantly around her head.

“You're the talk of the hill, angel. We go through dance partners fast, you see. So few have any stamina. But you … you should last us eons.” She smiled, her teeth like pearls. “And such a graceful vessel you have! All that fire shining inside …”

“Where are the Winchesters?” Castiel's voice felt rough and removed. He couldn't feel himself speak. He knew he was here because of Sam and Dean, or for them. There'd been coughing. Gaunt cheeks. Blood on tissue. That was normal for Sam, these days, but not for Dean.

The woman smiled. “In the ballroom, waiting for you. Where else would they be?”

She moved her hand. The air rippled. Castiel rose to his feet, unencumbered, though some of his bondage remained. He looked down and saw his ankles and wrists ringed in flowers. Snowdrops. Cowslips. Field Poppies. He reached up and felt a flower crown atop his own head. The movement disturbed molecules. Perfume reached his nostrils, and he swayed, dizzy, spiderwebs stringing across his vision.

The woman held out her arm, and the world righted itself. “Won't you escort me to the dance?”

Their limbs hooked. Castiel let himself be led, and within three steps, he entered a cavernous ballroom. Candles ringed the room. Men and women milled beneath them. No—they weren't quite human, at least not all of them, though they were beautiful. Their limbs glowed. So did their fabrics.

Castiel shook his head to dislodge a chiming in his ears. “What have you done to me?”

The woman leaned in close. “You don't dance much, do you, angel?”

“No.” Angels were more prone to song than dance, and Heaven hadn't seen cause for celebrating in quite some time. Much of that was due to Castiel.

The woman clapped his shoulder. “It's high time you started. Let's cut a rug, jitterbug.”

Before Castiel could express annoyance at her phrasing, he found himself standing in a line, facing another row of people. They were male and female and neither. Some of them seemed more plant than animal. He looked down the line and saw Sam, pale-faced and grinning wide, his eyes fever-bright. Dean stood next to Sam, his expression similar to his brother's. They both wore swallow-tail coats and breeches, along with their usual boots. That made sense: their soles had been wearing fast, as if Sam and Dean were running miles in their sleep.

Castiel had kept Jimmy's suit and trench coat. Perhaps their captors' hadn't wanted to risk undressing an angel. It could disturb the flowers, and without the flowers …

“It's a lovely party, don't you think? We have such esteemed company.” The woman found her place directly opposite Castiel. They were in the center of the line. Perhaps they were expected to lead the dance. She followed his gaze to Sam and Dean. “Ah, yes. They're settling in well.”

“They're dying.” Castiel's head felt heavy. He fought for focus—something that should've come without thought. The music started, and he seethed. Something had been done to him. His mind and vessel weren't his own. _Again_. Even now, he waited, subdued, until the woman started the dance by raising her left hand and stepping forward. Castiel raised his right. They pressed their palms toward one another but didn't quite touch. They circled. Castiel imagined flattened grass.

The dance spilled from the middle out, each player performing a predetermined series of movements. It reminded Castiel of a quadrille, if a quadrille could contain thirty-two dancers. He found his own feet moving, carrying him away from the woman and toward new partners. He couldn't feel his sword. He should have noticed sooner.

“You're trying to know.” The female dancer across from him spoke quietly. “It goes more pleasantly when you don't.”

He saw clouded eyes, deliberately scratched. Blinked. Saw them replaced with sparkling, if vacant, jewel-blue. Still, Castiel had seen. “You blinded yourself.”

She bowed. Part of the dance. “I rubbed my eyes with the truth. They blinded me for it. It was kind of them, though I wish they'd been kinder. I'd like to forget.”

“The truth?”

“You already hear it. Listen, and you'll lose your ears.”

Castiel suspected several truths. He wasn't sure how his vessel's perceptions factored, when he already knew they'd been altered. “You're referring to our imprisonment in a _sidhe_?”

The bluebells rang. The room whirled. Castiel found himself in front of Sam. “Cas! It's good to see you here.”

“It's not. I'm caught. I can't help you. The flowers—”

Sam stepped on Castiel's foot. He ducked his head, sheepish. “Sorry, man. You'd think I'd have the moves down by now.”

The Winchesters had been sallow and tired, barely competent. They'd been … wasting. Their minds and bodies eroded. They hadn't been able to detect a hex bag. They hadn't been hit with any curse that they remembered, and the demons they tortured professed to know nothing. It had taken Castiel over a month to notice that their shoes were wearing holes. He'd followed them to a field of bluebells—a curious thing to find in Ohio, considering they were _H. non-scripta_ : a species native to Britain.

“Who's the woman in green?”

“The Green Lady. She's _awesome_. She even lets us call her _The_ Lady, like we're friends.” Sam lifted Castiel and twirled him, moving in tandem with the other dancers. It was … undignified, and informal for a ballroom dance, but Castiel's body responded as if it had been expecting such a thing. “She says she'll keep me and Dean if we're good enough dancers. I can sit at her feet and eat grapes from her hand.”

Castiel doubted these were Sam's natural ambitions. “How will you sit and dance at the same time?”

Sam's expression fell. Perhaps he hadn't thought of that.

Castiel gripped Sam's forearms. The bands on his wrists drew tight. “Sam. We need to get out of here. You're under an enchantment. We're in a _sidhe_ , among the Unseelie …”

The bluebells clanged.

Castiel slapped a hand to his vessel's ear. Blood wet his palm. He displaced it. At least he still had that ability. “Do you hear them?”

“Don't listen.” That was Dean. When had Castiel switched partners? “This ain't my first time in fairy land. These things aren't playing. They get their hooks in you, and you're hooked. At least we're not servicing freaking Oberon.”

“Bluebells are important,” Castiel said. “Why?”

“They're not worth crap. Don't listen. Don't look.” Dean's upper lip lifted. “It's not so bad, man. What do we got out there? It's shitty, and it keeps getting shittier. We're going to die bloody sooner or later. Why shouldn't we go out dancing?”

“This will kill you.”

Dean shrugged, mid-curtsy. “Everything worth doing does.”

“Bluebells.”

“Ignore them, Cas. You hear a bluebell ring, you die, Cas. The fairies kill you. So don't hear them.”

Castiel wasn't human, and the bluebells were impossible to ignore. Their percussion drove beneath his skin, beyond Jimmy's bones. It stabbed into his every atom. Castiel studied Dean's boots, worn and inelegant. They looked odd with breeches and fine silk stockings. He doubted Dean chose his clothes.

“You were going to stay in Purgatory,” Dean said. “At least this punishment comes with a party.”

“ _Sam_ will die. The enchantment is destroying you both, and he's already damaged from the trials.” Castiel saw mud on Dean's boot toe. He focused on that. The rest of the ballroom was too clean. No dirt. No bacteria. He was confined to seeing surfaces. Why? He felt his flowers grow cruel edges. They bit into his wrists and ankles.

He looked to Dean, whose face remained composed. Castiel couldn't believe a Dean who would caution Castiel yet show no concern for Sam. This was part of the enchantment, like Sam's enthusiasm for his nightly toil.

“In some legends, bluebells signify truth," Castiel told Dean. "That's why the fae don't want us to listen and why they kill those that do. It breaks the enchantment.”

“What enchantment? Me and Sammy are happy to be here. The Green Lady loves us.” Dean leaned back, asking for a spin. Castiel complied. He couldn't help himself. “We've had shittier friends, Cas.”

The blow landed. Castiel ignored it. “Listen.”

“Don't.”

“The bluebells are ringing all around us. The knoll's beneath them. _Listen_ , Dean.”

Dean's nostrils flared. "You ever think you _need_ a leash, Cas? You fuck up whenever you slip your collar."

He'd have killed Dean if not for his latest _slip_. Pain spiked in Castiel's mind. The room spun, and Dean was gone. In his place stood a massive insect not-insect. Green light glinted, and Castiel knew this was the Green Lady, although it had no more biological sex than he did. The ballroom was gone; replaced by a drab space not so different from Crowley's Hell, where the few humans listed in torn clothing. The music screeched and droned.

“You should've left it alone, angel. It goes more smoothly for everyone when you choose not to hear or smell or taste. Some things are better left unperceived.”

Castiel saw the Winchesters attempt to stumble through the rest of the dance, on the cusp of exhaustion. Fury filled him. “You will release your prisoners.”

The Lady condensed itself. They were shapeshifters. Castiel remembered that now. It took the form of a man, its features like Dean's, but with livid green eyes and white-blond hair. It kept its insect mandible in lieu of human mouth. “Humans used to say that we're angels—the ones who didn't choose Heaven or Hell at the Fall.”

“Humans are often wrong.” Castiel knew items that could harm or repel fairies—iron, bells, bread—but he doubted they'd keep any in their _sidhe_. The magic here had disabled many of his abilities. He didn't know what to do, only what had to be done.

“They failed to recognize that we're better than angels. Independent. You're easy to bind, Castiel, and the rules that govern your kind won't allow you to break free, so why not relax? This doesn't have to be terrible for you. Cut loose a little. Enjoy yourself. You'll be safe. Heaven and Earth will be safe from you.”

The bluebells tolled.

The Lady smiled. “They'll spend every night dancing with you, without anger or pain or thoughts of other, better friends, or the many times you've abandoned or hurt them. You'll never disappoint them. Here, they'll love you. ”

“They'll be dead.” And in Heaven, with an army of angels who had every reason to hate Castiel.

The Lady glowed, like it knew it had won. It was beautiful even now, when it was terrible. “For as long as they last, you'll have their forgiveness. Your kind can never resist that.”

“Perhaps you haven't heard, but I'm a poor example of my kind.” Castiel reached for the crown on his head. The flowers dug into his scalp, but he was an angel, and he had no real need for one. His flower bracelets screamed and tightened, cutting off circulation. Castiel ignored the pain—and there was _pain_ —more than he should have experienced. It didn't matter.

He pulled the crown from his head. Saw it bedecked with hair and skin, as well as poppies, and threw it over the Lady's neck. He pulled it tight. He'd killed things that looked like Dean before. He could do it again, and again, and again—

The green stems sliced into skin. Castiel heard crackling, and knew that he was damaging exoskeleton. The flowers around his wrists and ankles laced themselves tighter and moved, wearing grooves. Blood spilled from split skin. The flowers were going to cut off his hands and wrists. He needed to kill the Lady before they did, and he didn't know _how_.

The bluebells clanged, hard and loud, filling Castiel's mind with sound. He felt a pain in his abdomen and knew he'd been stabbed or clawed, that his intestines could slide loose at any moment. It didn't matter. He wouldn't let the fae take Sam and Dean. He wouldn't fail—

Braided flower stems hit arteries. Castiel watched his blood spurt. The Lady grinned at him, unbothered, but there was something in its eyes. He'd hurt it somehow. Jimmy's blood—

It was arterial blood, and bright red. Full of iron.

_Iron_.

Castiel closed his eyes. Condensed his Grace and pushed it where he could, separating iron from water, cooling it cold. He couldn't give it form—couldn't merge them into anything visible to the human eye—but the particles were there, and The Lady looked furious. It had dropped most of its human face.

It might've said something. Castiel couldn't hear. The bluebells were too loud—

He forced the iron into its mouth—

_Pop._

The Lady disappeared. So did the _sidhe_ , leaving nothing but hollowed earth prone to collapse and a handful of former prisoners. The blind woman was crying; Castiel hoped she felt more happiness than sorrow. He didn't think he'd killed the Lady. He didn't know that he could.

The flowers fell from Castiel. He looked at their blood-soaked petals with disinterest, then did away with the damage to his vessel. He brought the humans to the surface. He sought out Sam and Dean.

They were leaning against each other, looking close to collapse. Sam kept lifting one foot up after the other.

“Holy shit.” Sam blinked sleepy eyes. He yawned. “What happened? It felt like I was dreaming.”

“It would've.” Castiel sighed. “I doubt the fae will return for you, but you should wear iron to bed the next few nights. Or keep bread on your person at all times.”

“We know the drill, Cas.” Dean rubbed his jaw. The circles under his eyes were so deep they looked like bruises.

“You were enchanted,” Castiel snapped. “Forgive me for thinking you might need a reminder.”

The Winchesters exchanged a look, one that meant they were engaged in silent communication about Castiel.

Dean swallowed. “Cas … I think I said some things back there, and that thing that looked like me, if I were bright blond and part bug … I think it said some things, too.”

“It wasn't you. Not entirely, and then entirely not.” Castiel wondered how Dean had felt, watching him visit violence on something that looked so much like himself, after Castiel had almost killed him. He felt ashamed. He felt furious. For an angel who'd chosen free will, he spent far too much time as a puppet. Then again, he wasn't much better as himself.

“That thing got a pretty good hold on you, too. We just want to make sure you're okay.” Sam hesitated. Maybe he had to gather energy enough to speak. “You okay, Cas?”

There was something … seductive, about dancing away an eternity, and yet Castiel knew that the fae's victims hadn't lived happily. He wondered if anyone ever did. Not that it mattered. If he didn't die in service to the Winchesters, it would be Crowley with the angel tablet, or Naomi, or any one of his brethren. Mostly, he feared being brought back. He wearied of his own mistakes.

Castiel lifted his hands, raising two fingers on each. “I'm taking you back to your motel. You need your rest.”

_Fin_.  
 

 


End file.
